A spokesman for Carlsberg said employees at the Northampton brewery, Leeds office and 12 regional customer distribution depots had been notified of the proposals.

It has not been confirmed how many jobs are at risk at the Northampton brewery but it is belived that 1,300 jobs are being lost at a ‘global level’ and 700, specifically including the UK, Russia and China.

A new interim chief executive, Michiel Herkemij, has been appointed to lead the company’s restructuring in the UK.

He said: “One of the biggest challenges in the UK beer market is significant over capacity, driving short-term behaviour in the market place. By making these proposed changes, we can control costs and build our brands and drinks portfolio. Removing the pressure to solely focus on volume will drive greater value for our business and for our customers.

“Unfortunately the proposed restructuring process may result in redundancies in some areas of the business, and we will support the impacted employees through the consultation period.

“By making these changes we will ensure the best possible future for our business. We will be agile and responsive and play a better role in brewing and wholesaling, now and in the longer-term.”

In the financial statement it was revealed that the financial performance of Carlsberg’s UK business has been deteriorating in recent years as a result of “market challenges”. One of the problems cited was Tesco’s decision not to stock Carlsberg.

The Carlsberg Group said it had also suffered a sales decline in its Russian and Chinese markets. The company said net profit grew by two per cent in the third financial quarter.

The statement read: “We are assessing a plan to provide better alignment of our production and logistics capacity with market requirements across various markets in the Group.

“The plan is to enhance the future profitability of the business and will entail reducing capacity within breweries as well as brewery closures.”